The Desert Spear

As Hannu Pash progressed, some of the boys were selected by the dama for special training, putting them on the path to wear the white. They left the Kaji’sharaj and were never seen again. Jardir was not chosen for this honor, but he did not mind. He had no desire to spend his days poring over ancient scrolls or shouting praise to Everam. He was bred for the spear.

The dama showed more interest in Abban, who had letters and numbers, but his father was khaffit, something they did not take to, even though the shame did not technically carry to a man’s sons.

“Better you fight,” the dama told Abban at last, poking his broad chest. Abban had kept much of his bulk, but the constant rigor of training had hardened the fat to muscle. Indeed, he was becoming a formidable warrior, and he blew out a breath of relief when it became clear he would not be called to the white.

Other boys, too weak or slow, were cast out of the Kaji’sharaj as khaffit— forced to return to the tan clothes of children for the rest of their lives. This was a worse fate by far, shaming their families and denying them hope of paradise. Those with warrior’s hearts often volunteered as Baiters, taunting demons and luring them into traps in the Maze. It was a brief life, but one that brought honor and entrance into Heaven for those otherwise lost.

In his twelfth year, Jardir was allowed his first look at the Maze. Drillmaster Qeran took the oldest and strongest of the nie’Sharum up the great wardwall—a sheer thirty feet of sandstone looking down on the demon killing ground that had once been an entire district of the city, back in ancient times when Krasia was more populous. It was filled with the remnants of ancient hovels and dozens of smaller sandstone walls. These were twenty feet high, with pitted wards cut into their surfaces. Some ran great distances and turned sharp corners, while others were just a single slab or angle. Together they formed a maze studded with hidden pitfalls, designed to trap and hold the alagai for the morning sun.

“The wall beneath your feet,” Qeran said, stamping his foot, “shields our women and children, even the khaffit,” he spit over the side of the wall, “from the alagai. The other walls,” he swept his hands out over the endlessly twisting walls of the Maze, “keep the alagai trapped in with us.” He clenched his fist at that, and the obvious pride he felt was shared by all the boys. Jardir imagined himself running through that maze, spear and shield in hand, and his heart soared. Glory awaited him on that blood-soaked sand.

They walked along the top of the thick wall until they came to a wooden bridge that could be drawn up with a great crank. This led down to one of the Maze walls, all connected by stone arches or close enough to jump. The Maze walls were thinner, less than a foot thick in some places.

“The walltops are treacherous for older warriors,” Qeran said, “apart from the Watchers.” The Watchers were dal’Sharum of the Krevakh and Nanji tribes. They were laddermen, each man carrying an iron-shod ladder twelve feet in length. The ladders could be joined to one another or used alone, and Watchers were so agile they could stand balanced at the top of an unsupported ladder as they surveyed the battlefield. The Krevakh Watchers were subordinate to the Kaji tribe, the Nanji to the Majah.

“For the next year, you boys will assist the Krevakh Watchers,” Qeran said, “tracking alagai movements and calling them down to the dal’Sharum in the Maze, as well as running orders back and forth from the kai’Sharum.”

They spent the rest of the day running the walltops. “You must know every inch of the Maze as well as you know your spears!” Qeran said as they went. Quick and agile, the nie’Sharum shouted in exhilaration as they leapt from wall to wall and darted over the small arched bridges. Jardir and Abban laughed at the joy of it.

But Abban’s big frame did not lend itself to balance, and on one slender bridge he slipped, falling off the wall. Jardir dove for his hand, but he was not fast enough. “Nie take me!” he cursed as their fingers brushed slightly and the boy dropped away.

Abban let out a brief wail before striking the ground, and Jardir could see even from twenty feet above that his legs were broken.

A braying laugh, like a camel’s honk, rang out behind him. Jardir turned to see Jurim slapping his knee.

“Abban is more camel than cat!” Jurim cried.

Jardir snarled and clenched a fist, but before he could rise, Drillmaster Qeran appeared. “You think your training is a joke?” he demanded. Before Jurim could gasp a reply, Qeran grabbed him by his bido and hurled him down after Abban. He screamed as he fell the twenty feet and struck hard, then lay unmoving.

The drillmaster turned to face the other boys. “Alagai’sharak is no joke,” he said. “Better you all die here than shame your brothers in the night.” The boys took a step back, nodding.

Qeran turned to Jardir. “Run now and inform Drillmaster Kaval. He’ll send men to bring them to the dama’ting.”

“It would be faster if we fetched them ourselves,” Jardir dared, knowing Abban’s fate might depend on those precious minutes.

“Only men are allowed in the Maze, nie’Sharum,” Qeran said. “Be off before the dal’Sharum are forced to fetch three.”

Jardir edged as close as he dared when the dama’ting came to speak with Drillmaster Qeran after gruel that evening, straining to hear her quiet words.

“Jurim broke several bones, and there was much bleeding within, but he will recover,” she said, speaking as if she were discussing nothing more significant than the color of sand. Her veils hid all expression. “The other, Abban, had his legs broken in many places. He will walk again, but he may not run.”

“Will he be able to fight?” Qeran asked.

“It is too soon to tell,” the dama’ting said.

“If that is the case, you should kill him now,” Qeran said. “Better dead than khaffit.”

The dama’ting raised a finger at him, and the drillmaster recoiled. “It is not for you to dictate what goes on in the dama’ting pavilion, dal’Sharum,” she hissed.

Immediately the drillmaster laced his hands as if in prayer and bowed so deeply that his beard nearly touched the ground.

“I beg the dama’ting’s forgiveness,” he said. “I meant no disrespect.”

The dama’ting nodded. “Of course you did not. “You are a dal’Sharum drillmaster, and will add the glory of your charges to your own in the afterlife, sitting among Everam’s most honored.”

“The dama’ting honors me,” Qeran said.

“Still,” the dama’ting said, “a reminder of your place will serve you well. Ask Dama Khevat for a penance. Twenty lashes of the alagai tail should do.”

Jardir gasped. The alagai tail was the most painful of whips—three strips of leather braided with metal barbs all along their four-foot length.

“The dama’ting is forgiving,” Qeran said, still bent low. Jardir fled before either one could catch sight of him and wonder what he might have heard.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Abban hissed as Jardir ducked under the flap of the dama’ting pavilion. “They will kill you if you’re caught!”

“I just wanted to see that you were well,” Jardir said. It was true enough, but his eyes scanned the tent carefully, hoping against hope that he might see Inevera again. There had been no sign of the girl since the day Jardir broke his arm, but he had not forgotten her beauty.

Abban looked to his shattered legs, bound tight in hardening casts. “I don’t know that I will ever be well again, my friend.”

“Nonsense,” Jardir said. “Bones heal stronger when they are broken. You will be back on the walls in no time.”

“Maybe,” Abban sighed.

Jardir bit his lip. “I failed you. I promised to catch you if you should fall. I swore it by Everam’s light.”

Abban took Jardir’s hand. “And so you would have, I do not doubt. I saw you dive to catch my hand. It is not your fault I struck the ground. I hold your oath fulfilled.”

Jardir’s eyes filled with tears. “I will not fail you again,” he promised.

Just then a dama’ting entered their partition, floating in silently from deeper within the pavilion. She looked their way, and she met Jardir’s eyes. His heart thudded to a stop in his chest, and his face went cold. It seemed they stared at each other forever. The dama’ting’s expression was unreadable beneath her opaque white veils.

At last, she tilted her head toward the exit flap. Jardir nodded, hardly believing his luck. He squeezed Abban’s hand one last time and darted out of the tent.

“You will encounter wind demons upon the walls, but you are not to engage,” Qeran said, pacing before the nie’Sharum. “That duty will be for the dal’Sharum you serve. Still, it is important you understand your foes.”

Jardir listened closely, sitting in his usual spot at the front of the group, but he was keenly aware of Abban’s absence at his side. Jardir had grown up with three younger sisters, and then found Abban the day he came to the Kaji’sharaj. Loneliness was a strange feeling.

“The dama tell us the wind demon resides on the fourth layer of Nie’s abyss,” Qeran told the boys, gesturing with his spear at a winged image chalked on the sandstone wall.

“Some, like the fools of the Majah tribe, underestimate the wind demon because it lacks the heavy armor of the sand demon,” he said, “but do not be fooled. The wind demon is farther from Everam’s sight, and a fouler creature by far. Its hide will still turn the point of a man’s spear, and the speed of its flight makes it difficult to hit. Its long talons,” he outlined the wicked weapons with the point of his spear, “can take a man’s head off before he realizes it’s there, and its beaklike jaws can tear off a man’s face in a single bite.”

He turned to the boys. “So. What are its weaknesses?”

Jardir’s hand immediately shot up. The drillmaster nodded at him.

“The wings,” Jardir said.

“Correct,” Qeran said. “Though made of the same tough membrane as its skin, the wings of a wind demon are stretched thin across cartilage and bone. A strong man can puncture them with his spear, or saw them off if his blade is sharp and the creature is prone. What else?”